If Conservative Party leader Colin Craig wants to pursue a career in politics, he needs to harden up. His threat this week to sue a satirical website that ran a spoof story which attributed fictional quotes to him suggests he is not yet ready to cope with the rough and tumble of Parliament’s debating chamber.

Politics is the contest of ideas, and those who practise it have to be prepared for the reality that not only will their policies be challenged and derided by their opponents, from time to time, they will be mocked.

There is nothing wrong with that, as long as it is not done in a nasty way, and the purpose is to make a political point rather than an outright personal attack. Satire has been around almost as long as politics itself, and, done well, is an entertaining and humorous medium for social and political commentary.

Absolutely. The satirical piece was extremely mild, and only a moron could have thought the purported quote was genuine.

The last thing we need is MPs and wannabee MPs firing off defamation threats at anyone who takes the mickey out of them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 27th, 2013 at 1:00 pm and is filed under NZ Politics.
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Colin Craig has a gift for business. He has handed this kid a perfect public entry into the cyber world of comedy news. My business could do with a boost; I might have a crack at Craig and see if he will do me the honor of threatening me with legal action as well…

The thing about this so called political “satire” is that it is frequently based upon left wing political perceptions that are wrong, but its purpose is to deliberately bolster those incorrect perceptions.

Or even worse, (as in the case of Danyl Mclauchlan’s recent cowardly piece), it is often just thinly disguised smears, bigotry and prejudice.

McLauchlan can actually write satire on occasions, but this is not one of them.

The point is (again) that Colin Craig didn’t object to satire. He objected to the use of quotation marks as if he did say it. How do you know that in a short period of time those words won’t be used as evidence of how stupid and fundamentalist he is? I can easily imagine a few Chinese whispers later someone quoting those words as if he did say them.
So give it up on Colin Craig. He’s a good fellow that thank goodness doesn’t agree with the progressive agenda, and that’s his crime it seems.

To see the harm that can be done, here is an example. Did Sarah Palin actually say “I can see Russia from my house”? Or did Tina Fey when sending her up?

I get the message Paula- I should be like you and all of the other mindless lemmings and just enthusiastically suck up every narrative the left wing media and Craig’s other political enemies put out there.

The quote attributed to Colin Craig is biblically inaccurate so, given his personal views, I can understand Craig may consider himself being ‘quoted’ as ‘misquoting’ God as not all that funny.

Journalists regularly misquote people and make fucking enormous mistakes and leave them totally uncorrected, which as a general context, does make it a little more difficult for others to write good satire.

I’ve got to say I agree with Scott on this one, if he left it unchallenged it would be exactly the same as the Tina Fey / SNL quote which is regularly attributed by liberals to Sarah Palin as an indication how stupid she is. The site is satirical but not overtly, you’ve actually got to read the article so I think he was right to want to correct the quote. However I wonder if it was really the best way of going about it. Had he just asked that an appropriate footnote / clarification was added it may have been easily addressed. Instead taking the lawyer approach was always going to look bad.

If the wisdom of a decision is indeed proved right (or wrong) by what results from it, then I guess the only option all of us now have is to see what result ultimately results from this – will Craig gain more support, or less support, as 2014 rapidly approaches? I wonder if Craig’s legally successful stance on this matter has given others who support him the permission to speak up as well? I am observing an increasing number of people speaking up in support of Craig, whereas before there were only a few people doing so. I guess we will know soon enough as to whether some sort of “boil” has been lanced?

I’m beginning to think that using a lawyer to write an email is a great way for Craig to get some free press.

I’m swinging around a bit from my initial reaction that he was a wuss and that there is a method to his supposed madness. The press love the fact that they can portray Colin Craig doesn’t have a sense of humour and can’t take a little bit of bullying, oops, sorry, critique, and for that they will line up around the block whenever he mentions an impending lawsuit.

Who cares about the 50% of the population that hate his guts just on ‘principle’ (Christian politician with money) That still leaves a sizable chunk that might just get a bit sick of the fact that the parties in power don’t publish manifestos that they don’t stick to anyway and do whatever the hell they want irrespective of voter preferences.

So now we move to the next phase – the liberal cry baby phase.

This is the phase where Colin doesn’t play by the liberal playbook. He is supposed to grin and bear a continual stream of mockery, and instead he threatens legal action. “Hey, those tactics aren’t allowed. Boo hoo. He’s stopping my right to free speech.”

No he’s not, he’s getting some free speech of his own. No end of journalists now lining up to get a sound bite.

After all, hasn’t he withdrawn all legal action after making the point and getting his press time? And yet the last thing he says in one of his follow up articles was “but I’m considering legal action against another group”. Brilliant.

On another matter, I like The Civilian’s satire. I’m worried that the legal notice seems to have hit Ben pretty hard – insiders say he might give it up because of the pressure. I read it on the internet, it must be true: Civilian to Quit Blogging.. Hang in there Ben!

Too often, conservatives / the right are smeared and maligned by leftists who then turn to the excuse that it’s just “humour” Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a cunt, then insisting it was all just “comedy”, for example.

I for one am glad Mr Craig taught this spotty little left-wing manchild a lesson in that he won’t tolerate thinly veiled smears against his name. There are too many yellow backed hyenas like Slater and McLauchlan doing that already.

I’m no apologist for CCraig, he’s a big boy and can hold his own, but I agree with several comments here, there is a place for satire but the MSM and some blogs have it in for CCraig. The piece on him on Seven Sharp and Mau’s comment “We’d all like a go at Craig wouldn’t we!” was despicable and unprofessional. “Satire” is being used as a stick to perpetuate partisan political smears.

(the Nazis used it very effectively to denigrate and destroy their political opponents). Satire is not an objective “rule.”

A good example is how the satire “You can see Russia from Alaska” has stuck to Sarah Palin. She never said that, it was a comedian who really looks like Palin (Tina Fey) who said it in a mock/comedy sketch. But it is continually attributed to Palin as an example of her stupidity (heard it on Afternoons more than five times).

Maybe that was C.Craig’s concern. With so many “journalists” twisting his words, maybe he wants to help preserve what he’s actually saying. The Left never play fair. Seen that in America….it’s got really nasty.

Has DPF lost the plot. Twice now he has essentially called Colin Craig a moron for not understanding satire, but that was never Craig’s observation. He objected to be quoted for something he didn’t say. I suppose he would be entitled to say that there would be many who would fail to comprehend his objections and colour them with political ill will or spite, in other words misquotes could be dangerous to him politically once in the hands of morons.

His second objection from what I read today is best described as political ‘tone’ of the media, pointing out that he wasn’t a cheap shot sort of person and didn’t really see that part of his political landscape.

DPF, like granny Herald, has used the ‘David and Goliath’ proposition as to the extent of the skirmish, however the Herald didn’t rely on the ‘only a moron’ quote that appears to have had DPF chuckling on consecutive days.

Someone has observed above this situation hasn’t done overall harm to Craig at this point and may have drawn some attention to him in a positive way. Not least, I would expect, as to a general reaction there can be against bloggers for some of the material placed on the net and who would see that Craig has taken one on and got him to retract in quick order. On that point I don’t think the young blogger is likely to profit handsomely long term for targeting Craig and others satirically despite that he now feels he needs writers and is in the process of ‘interviews.’

It seems few in the media have taken the view that Craig like anybody else is entitled to go to the Courts, or that there may be boundaries too readily crossed in the media for political point scoring, that might be the true ‘casting’ of Colin Craig, as ‘David’ rather than ‘Goliath.

Regarding Palin’s comments, the Russia quote is incorrect but it’s used as a representation of other very dopey sounding comments. Her actual Russia quotes:

Charlie Gibson: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

Sarah Palin: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

ABC News interview, 2008-09-11

And…

Katie Couric: You’ve cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign-policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land — boundary that we have with — Canada. It, it’s funny that a comment like that was — kind of made to — cari— I don’t know. You know. Reporters —

Palin: Well, it certainly does because our— our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They’re in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia—

Couric: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth. We— we do— it’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where— where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is— from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to— to our state.

Interview with Katie Couric, CBS Evening News (2008-09-25)

She is one of the most famous running partner mistakes, justifiably so.

don’t think this stuff will harm him–free advertising is a good thing.

Craig can afford all the advertising he needs, he does not need to put himself in a position for all and sundry to openly ridicule him. Even if he has something to offer this will now stick to him like shit to a blanket and everytime he trys to make a serious point it will come up.

He would be much better hiring someone to teach him to STFU , only speak on something he knows about ( ideas anyone?) and not come across as a 40 year virgin. His inexperience is staggering, most laymen could slay him in an argument at the moment, professional committee men will dice him up.

In July 2012, Craig claimed during an interview with 3 News he could choose to be gay if he wanted to.[17]

saying stuff like above just re-iterates you are a fuckwit, no one gets elected on their views on rooting

iMP, I know you can see Russia from an island in Alaska. But no lies or distortion are necessary to see how Palin floundered, especially in the Couric interview when she tried to explain herself.

And when you consider how much insight you might get into Russian actions in Europe from these viewpoints…

In the middle of the Bering Strait are two small, sparsely populated islands: Big Diomede, which sits in Russian territory, and Little Diomede, which is part of the United States. At their closest, these two islands are a little less than two and a half miles apart, which means that, on a clear day, you can definitely see one from the other.

…and…

To the Russian mainland from St. Lawrence Island, a bleak ice-bound expanse the size of Long Island out in the middle of the Bering Sea, the distance is 37 miles. From high ground there or from the Air Force facility at Tin City atop Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost edge of mainland North America, on a clear day you can see Siberia with the naked eye.

…her “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska” comment was also bizarre.

Have you heard about all of the black fellas fuck ups? No of course not, media don’t report that and there is plenty to report. He is way less smart than Bush or Palin. He is not only stupid but dangerous with it.

As usual the MSM have hardly covered themselves with glory while reporting on the issue. Fact remains that Craig is gaffe prone & far from being media savvy. As others have mentioned if he had asked for an addendum to be attached to the article few would have faulted his actions.

As it stands by calling out the lawyers he presents as a privileged, humourless prat regardless of the rights or wrongs of the incident. He has about a year in which to harden up & develop some nous when dealing with people who will relish the opportunity to trip him up. If he doesn’t he will be crucified on the campaign trail.

Footnote: My personal preference is for Collin Craig & his party to disappear without trace as will probably happen. Since however, watching him bumble his way through political life is cringe making I give my advice gratis as a public service.

I agree with you that the MSM have not “covered themselves in glory” reporting this issue. What I suspect they will be covering themselves in from now on is some long-overdue publishing caution when reporting on Craig. Craig already seems to have a bloggers scalp to his belt; I wonder who might be keen to be the MSM “scalp”?

Me, I’m picking that it will probably be someone from the screen media.

I’m curious Paul – what denotes someone being “slayed” in an argument?

with his penchant for making verbal gaffes and his inexperience in a public forum it would not take much for someone with their facts in place to make Craig look stupid (er). I have heard nothing on his economic policy, nothing on health, nothing on education, nothing on defence, nothing in fact other than his banging on about the homo’s. If his prediction on how he was going to kick Mark Mitchell’s arse was anything to go by, lets just flag him totally. As a poster boy for conservatives, and please explain what that means , Craig is a flop.

On the subject of political satire, who else misses those photos of the US president compared with a chimp we used to see so often ?. I wonder what happened to those ? People used to trawl through millions of screen shots trying to find a match with the Chimp.

It was soooooooooo funny. I wonder why it suddenly stopped happening with our fair and balanced media ?

I think the media bias point it a fair and valid one. Craig will not get a fair go simply because he is Conservative.

I don’t know about you lot, but I do not need some half wit bimbo on the news telling me how to think.

Having said all that, Craig signed his own death warrant for me by attacking a satire site. He should have laughed at it in a very public way and turned it into a positive. It would have softened his conservative image to show he does not take himself too seriously. He scares me now.

….”The definition of a bigot is a person who is prejudiced, or intolerant of those who are different.”….

Presuming “prejudiced” to mean “biased”, yes of course I am…..same as you & 99% of the people who comment here. I doubt that you would have the slightest comprehension of the meaning of “tolerance” so why would you expect it in anyone else.

The word “bigot” is thrown around with gay abandon by extreme right wing religious nutjobs in EXACTLY the same manner as “racist” is used by the socialists. It serves as a catchphrase to divert criticism of extreme political conservatism & sky fairies.

Same here, though not always happily. It is something people (Red) can not get their heads around. It is not all one thing or the other. Some of Craig’s ideas I may agree with, same with the Greens. But overall National is the closest match, as imperfect as that may be.

iMP: Pete George, words fail me. You can either see Russia from Alaska or you can’t. YOU CAN!

Yes, you can, I said that.

But being able to see one country from the other if you happen to go to a small remote island will do nothing to provide an “insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks”. That was referring to what was happening in South Ossetia, which I’m sure Palin can’t see from anywhere in Alaska, even on her tippy toes.

Colin Craig:
“Some of our policies I think will be perceived as lefty, or socialist, some of them will be perceived as righty, or liberal, but bringing all of those together I believe that it will be a platform that all New Zealanders can at least consider voting for.”

@ghudson: Yes, if the Conservatives don’t crack 5%, then the re-allocation process of votes to the highest polling parties (and others) certainly applies – which I imagine will motivate the Party no end.

Reddy (& a few others) totally overlook the fact that the centre point in NZ politics has been drifting left for many years. There are simply not the numbers of hard right voters to make any real difference regardless of parties…..forcing a centre right party further to the right is a recipe for electoral defeat.

Anyone that writes satire knows damned well that if you want to damage an individuals reputation, you keep the approach more subtle whenever that individual is mentioned.

This is exactly what was happening and Craig was right to go into damage control. I doubt he really gives a rats arse, but I can completely understand why someone with pursuing a political career would have to take the approach he did from time to time.

The reason this is news is because he refuses to play to the liberal ‘rules’ of engagement, and bloody good show I say.

Don’t know why people are giving Ben (The Civilian) so much stick in this. His satire is fairly even-handed and funny to boot. It is funny because it is not malicious (and very well written). What he said of Colin Craig was relatively mild. I don’t think Colin Craig disagrees, I think he’s making the point that because others have approached him thinking maybe there was some kind of substance to the story (although obviously satirical) that he wanted it clear it was 100% made up, not 90% made up.

I’ve done that myself, as have many others – use actual quotes of people in amongst the satirical piece. Sometimes people just make it easy to resort to the truth without having to go to the trouble of just making sh*t up. Of course, a lot of the commentary relies on context and on interpretation, and so people can still be misrepresented in what they are saying or meaning…but that’s a different issue for another day.

@nasska: “Forcing a centre right party further to the right is a recipe for electoral defeat”. For National in its current form – yes, I would agree with you, for National to secure their current vote.

However, my observation is that the Conservative Party and its leadership are taking a position within the political landscape, and then, rather than drift to a position (influenced perhaps by internal polling), they seem to be inviting others to their “undrifting” position. My understanding is that the Conservative Party now have somewhere between 3000 – 4000 members.

I don’t know how that compares to the membership of other political parties, but that seems to me to be like quite a lot of people on the ground – and growing.

@Pauleastbay said: “saying stuff like above just re-iterates you are a fuckwit, no one gets elected on their views on rooting”

Well, that does seem to be at the heart of the policies to legalise prostitution, demand free contraception and easy access to abortion. Progressive politicians (I include National in this group) also seem to mock ‘cel-a-basy’ (but have no trouble pronouncing sodomy – perhaps Maurice has tried that- is that his criteria to learn how to pronounce words?) There’s a whole pile of Green and Labour Policy in that list.

Slightly off-topic: Whilst I find some of The Civilian’s posts quite amusing, I think Ben is kidding himself (yet I’m not trying to knock the guy for giving it a go) if he thinks he can make a full-time income out of the site, let alone cover expenses.

For instance, consider a revenue model that adopts Google’s AdSense program (i.e. providing a space or spaces on your website for Google to place advertisements – as I believe DPF does here and has acknowledged that the income is minimal).

The Civilian would need to attract 50 000 unique visitors a week with a Click-Thru Rate (i.e. the number of people that actually click on an ad as a percentage of overall visitors) at the industry average of 3.5%, with the amount generated per click around $NZ.50 (also the industry average CPC) to get around the average NZ weekly wage.

noskire – yes, it will be a huge challenge to get a viable income off it.

Craig is not going to please all conservatives with this:
“If people are staying with the same partner for a long period of time and they chose contraceptive and they pay for it themselves, more power to them.”

The CCCP will pick up 2 or 3% of the vote simply because their core policies appeal to the religious right. Any party against gay marriage, abortion & euthanasia is a sitter to attract the bible bashers who would sacrifice the prosperity of the country to return NZ to where it was in the 50’s.

After that, where to? It’s going to be unbelievably hard to craft policies that will bring in extra potential voters without compromising the ones they have. An older conservative pakeha demographic is not going to share a lot of common ground with the only other solidly religious grouping ie. the Pacific Islanders who would presently be Labour vote fodder.

As I stated before I hope the entire CCCP movement goes down the toilet & I’ll be there to perform the last flush if required.

@nasska: Hmmmmm……………..you’ve given me an idea. I am going to see if I can find out the current membership make-up of the Conservative Party, in order to test your theory.

I will attempt to separate the “bible bashers” into one group (haven’t worked out yet how I am going to get near them, with all the “bashing” stuff going on, but I’ll work it out), and have an “everyone else” group, and then see which sub-groups emerge from the “everyone else” group. Once I have the information, I will post up the results.

Yep – I hear you loud and clear on your aquatic gravitational desire for the Conservative Party – however I suspect that you will have to line up behind Cameron “Whaleoil” Slater – he entrenched his “first place in line” for this desire months ago

May I suggest, that after you sequester the suspected Godbotherers, you should pass the plate around & take up a collection. If it comes back with seven ten cent coins & two fly buttons you’ll have a group of true Christians.

nasska says: “The word “bigot” is thrown around with gay abandon by extreme right wing religious nutjobs in EXACTLY the same manner as “racist” is used by the socialists. It serves as a catchphrase to divert criticism of extreme political conservatism & sky fairies.”
In my experience of this site, the word “bigot” is reserved almost exclusively to abuse Christians.

2. Sceondly none of those law changes were national policies or bills, so your point is.

A: I responded to your initial claim that “no one gets elected on their views on rooting” and yet it is a clear part of Green Party Policy in the links I provided. Not sure why you also now want to restrict it to National Policy in this conversation, but my reply to that is “so what”, National are supposedly in power, but Labour have pushed through bills on redefining the marriage act and mondayising ANZAC day – and the Greens got their way on the smacking bill even though National received a mandate via the 88% vote on a referendum to reverse it.

3. Fran Wildes bill was a private members as was the marriage one, perhaps we should ban private members bills.

I’d suggest conscience votes are only done where the ruling party has campaigned on that issue and has mandate. Conscience votes seem somewhat oxymoronic. Politicians don’t appear to have consciences. They do what they want to do, electorates be damned.

If CCraig and the Conservatives are polling the same as Winnie and the Maori party WITHOUT any parliamentarians, having never been in parl., and got was it 3% of the vote last time? having only set up 2 months or so before, I’d say there was something going on there. Add the petrol of same-sex marriage and Street’s euthanasia to the BBQ and John Key has some fried bangers on his hands I’d say.

iMP – you are on to it. A few people who should know better have dismissed the Conservative Party based on the last election results. However, they know full well the party had just popped into existence* around then and were just barely ramping up at the time. Next election, they will have a good chance of marking a mark – assuming they can hit 5% which is very possible.

*Literally, popped into existence. I checked for a birth certificate, and Colin Craig is either eternal, or was created in an instant or is Obama’s brother, because I couldn’t find much evidence of him prior to the announcement of the NZ Conservative Party. However, if some-one can advance a credible theory about evolution, I might go for that too. Mind you, it has already been proven the Greens evolved from pond slime, Labour from parasites, National from the kids who held their breath until they got what they wanted, the Maori Party from 3 articles published in the Women’s Weekly of 1840 the Mana Party from the love child of Sue Bradford and Tame Iti, and the ACT Party doesn’t actually exist – it’s a bogeyman invented by David Lange to keep the Young Labourites in check. That really only leaves Unicorns as the possible ancestor of the Conservatives, but as they don’t exist we have to assume creationism and that God does move in mysterious ways

“If you didn’t see how the Herald spun the story about this little ‘Ben Infidel’ prat,”

Yes, written by David Fisher, IMHO a fake journalist and one of the most ardent left wing propagandists out there.

And yet here on Kiwiblog are so many insipid National Party supporters writing in support of David Fisher.

This is why the Conservative Party is important.

You only have to see how the Nats voted on marriage redefinition, and see who supports them here on Kiwiblog, to know they have hopelessly lost political direction. They are a party of Progressives just like Labour. They are left wing and propped up by ex Labour party people (Peter Dunne, Turiana Turia) and the snivelling turncoat John Banks, the most despicable of all for his long advocacy for Conservative ideas yet he became leader of (nowadays) ultra-liberal ACT and voted to attack marriage. Scum.

National has betrayed its Conservative supporters by attacking marriage, and they are about to commit a further act of betrayal by endorsing the racist Constitutional Committee, another fraud fake con job on the people of NZ that is intent on enshrining the TOW as NZ’s founding document.

So it does not matter what the Conservatives policies are. The important thing is to reduce the influence of the Progressives (and racists) within National. The best way to do this, even though it is not the perfect way, is to support the Conservative Party.

If you have any doubt how frightened the left wing of National is of the Conservatives, you only have to observe how they constantly and frantically try to smear Colin Craig. How they willingly enter into an alliance with Labour and the far left media (like David Fisher) to advance those smears.

It does not matter what the Conservative Party policies are. It is completely irrelevant. What has to happen is that the left wing that controls National has to be brought down. The Conservative Party is the best option to achieve this objective.

I do not care if Labour and the Greens win the election. The country is done anyway if the National Party does not return to its Conservative roots. This country has to turn away from racism and progressivism if it is to progress. Today’s Nats won’t make that turn so they have to go. End Of Story.

It is always different when someone else or another group is getting mocked. Give it a few years with a Labour Green government and this sort of billboard will be deemed hate speech.

Tui mocks ‘dad’s new husband’ in billboard

A Facebook group has already emerged calling for it to be taken down, with the page’s creator saying: “This is so wrong in so many ways! I will no longer be drinking tuis because of this! Time to take a stand and take this crap off!”

It’s interesting to see the poll trends for the Conservative Party. Roy Morgan included them separately since July last year, just as the marriage bill was cranking up towards it’s first reading.

They debuted at 3% but since then have dropped back and have fluctuated between 0.5% and 2%. The last was 1.5%, just prior to the 3rd reading.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the poll due out next week. This will have been polled as the marriage bill publicity is fading by while the satire topic was raging.

But this is just interesting. Small party success or failure swings on the last few weeks of an election campaign. There is a lot of time to build support or scare the voters before then. And it will depend on the prospects of other parties, particularly Act, NZF and National.

And it pays to keep in mind that Craig has a history of overstating his chances through over-optimistic claims and dodgy polls.

@Pete: Its a relief for me to find out that someone else, like me, admits that they can’t predict a cast-iron guarantee of outcome, before the outcome actually arrives.

I agree with you regarding small parties support consolidating in the last few weeks of a campiagn -for NZF last election, this swing appeared to occur on the night of the Election – I watched the first progress graph go up and went ‘Huh?”. The 2002 (?) worm debate for UFNZ was also something to behold.

I assume you may be referring to the Horizon Poll – was it a “dodgy” poll, or was it simply that the Horizon poll methodology was different to that of Roy Morgan, Colmar Brunton, or Reid Research, and thus produced a different (and admittedly optimistic) result? Snowball sampling, wasn’t it?

On polling conducted for the Conservative Party by Research First that put support for Mr Craig at 47 per cent against 36.3 per cent for Mr Mitchell.

Mitchell got 53%, Craig 21%.

It’s hard to imagine polling being that inaccurate. It was either very poor polling, the electorate mood changed remarkably (in the opposite direction to what you might expect), or it was deliberate deceit.

UF in 2002 and NZF in 2011 show how much support can change in the last 2 weeks of an election campaign. And it can all come down to a media lottery.

Oh that one: OK, my perspective on the Reid Research Poll would be Sample size = adequate for some statistical analysis – but only just; Methodology = Standardised random selection method, so Ok; polling questions in absence of comparison to other candidates names = needed some work.

I have no idea as to whether or not the Rodney electorate mood changed or not, and I can’t find a reference point for Craig being deliberately deceitful.

I am aware that the “anti-Colin Craig” brigade at the time attempted to paint this poll as “dodgy” – but I also can’t find any valid evidence for this position: simply opinion-as-fact commentary.

Given the construction of the questions, I can absolutely imagine a poll being that inaccurate.

The Reid Research poll didn’t give people the same list of candidates to choose from as did a voting form on Election day, so I am not of the opinion that the poll was dodgy: it seems to me that you simply had the Reid poll asking one thing, and the Election form asking something different.

Colin Craig made a complete ass of himself threatening to sue Ben Uffindel creator of the “Civilian” blog because it revealed him to be a humourless wooden political candidate wannabe who will not make it into parliament. On the other hand Colin could do a Brash and give Peter Dunne the chop, that’s about the only way he could get in.
Anyway the winner here is Ben Uffindel, his website is now on the political web radar and at 22 he has a great future.